


What Lies Beneath

by darksideofthe_moon



Category: Naruto
Genre: Kelpie!Shisui, M/M, Scottish folklore AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-16
Updated: 2014-04-16
Packaged: 2018-01-19 15:48:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1475368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darksideofthe_moon/pseuds/darksideofthe_moon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Itachi fancies he can feel it watching him, and half longs for the day he feels its breath on the back of his neck where he can feel its gaze.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Lies Beneath

 

They'd been in Scotland for two years before Itachi grew tired of life inside the warm and cosy mountain cottage in the middle of a closely knit and superstitious village that still herded sheep and decided to venture out to try and understand just what about these highlands had drawn his mother so in the first place.

He follows the stream at the bottom of their garden first, up into the crags of a granite gully and discovers it leads to nowhere but a vast rock platform upon which he can sit and – on clear days – watch the comings and goings of the entire valley while the stream trickles to oblivion beneath it. From the perch, he spots a loch far on the other side of the valley adjacent to theirs, the one that belongs to the red deer, the wildlife and the odd sheep that gets lost and the creatures of legends that still spook the children of this place. It doesn't take him long to decide to find a way to reach it.

It is winter by the time he manages, and he knows what he is doing is absolutely moronic, that he could easily catch himself hyperthermia and die and no one would ever know or be caught in a blizzard or- so many things, but he cannot care about any of them because it's so quiet here, the water is frozen and while Itachi is many things, he is not quite that combination of brave and stupid enough to attempt to walk on it when he has already exhausted those reserves in getting here. Instead he skims stones from the shore across the surface and watches them bounce and skitter in all directions as he sits on a frosty stump of a tree that toppled over a long time ago and whose rotten branches lie perfectly still in the frozen water. He wonders briefly if they could take his weight, before chuckling and berating himself for being so daft and  _want to drown do you?_

It's from that moment that the dreams start.

Itachi wakes in the dark, his covers thrown to the floor and is only just able to stop himself from shouting out in horror, because they get more vivid each time. He sees a face that blurs with waking, one he knows and loves so much it leaves him aching every minute of the day, and sees it disappear beneath a river with waters darkened by night, watches him choke and writhe and fight, watches him drown and die, and there's nothing he can do because it's his hands holding him there and he wakes with his hands still wrapped around a neck that no longer – surely never – exists, and so he wraps them around his own neck instead and clings to himself, imagining it is the boy he knows he's killed and that this is the only way he can reach him. Each time they come, he seeks refuge at the loch. Each time he sees the loch, the dreams intensify, but still he cannot draw himself away. This is all he has of him, whoever he was.

Scottish winters never ceased to amaze him in their ferocity. There was something about the frozen water that drew him to it like a moth to a flame. His fascination leads him to walk the circumference of the loch several times looking for a weakness, for a spot where the ice gives – for surely it must – and he spots it finally, a circular gap beneath the branches of the old tree that must have toppled in years ago. Despite the fact he's been looking for exactly that, he is startled at how wrong it suddenly feels, and how close the air becomes, as though there is something pressing down on him.

He sits at the computer in the dark, trawling through the internet for answers – finds one about something like currents and the strength of them that keeps ice at bay but that doesn't satisfy him because the loch is fairly still and it brings visions of black water swirling around his own legs as he stands shaking, watching a body be tossed by the waves so vividly that he has to stop and clutch at himself for a while until the tremors subside and he stops keening quietly to himself.

The second intrigues him much more, and he finds himself clicking on the site before he even realises what he's doing.  _"It is said that there is a spot on the loch which never freezes over because of the heat rising from the kelpie's chimney_ " and he is startled to realise it is dawn and half an hour before his alarm before he has satisfied himself with reading all he can about the faeries that inhabit the lochs and take the form of a horse or a beautiful human to lure people into their depths to devour them.

He is disappointed to find that the winter this year grows harsher still and prevents him from trekking over the valley to the loch, and so instead he immerses himself in his sudden interest in folklore, finding to his delight that the locals on a Friday night in the pub are more than willing to share stories. There are countless about that loch, he finds, and most of them do indeed contain a mention of a kelpie – but the one that sticks in his mind is the one the landlord tells him afterhours, while Itachi helps him clear the glasses and pints and chivvy the more reluctant or less able after however many drinks out of the door.

He hears of the kelpies that steal young girls away from their families to make them their wives, of the one girl who escaped only to be gifted with her son's head for doing so, of travellers from nowhere seeking partners in the villages nearby, neither ever seen again and yet despite that, not once has the kelpie in their local folklore ever stolen a wife – and in fact the only time he can ever remember the kelpie being mentioned outside of the loch was once during a market, where a dark haired man passed through the village, soaking wet and asking if anyone had seen a boy with long dark hair and eyes like coals-  
"Much like you, eh, lad?"

* * *

When the summer comes, Itachi takes to art as an excuse to go walking. The summer shows to be something beautiful, though Itachi is still freezing and unused to the Scottish climate, and he finds a new kind of contentment sat on a stump by the loch with sketchpad open and pencils strewn across the shingle, drawing the swallows that dance above the water, and smiling in something akin to happiness. The sketchpad is nearly full before Itachi spots the horse. The sight of it standing by the water's edge, proud and tall and gleaming, so ebony that the sun makes its coat shine blue black, and its eyes looking right at him, right  _into_ him startles him so much that he nearly drops the sketchpad. He spooks the creature too, but Itachi quickly remedies this, speaking softly and soothingly and is delighted when the animal decides to stay, though keeping its distance and watching him warily, but Itachi is too struck by the beauty of the animal to notice the sadness in its eyes until he comes to draw them. It is only once the glory of the creature has subsided a bit that Itachi looks at the sketch and suddenly realises just what he may have drawn that day.

He returns to the loch every day without fail, and while there is an abundance of wildlife for him to draw – more than he could ever have imagined – the horse never makes an appearance again – but Itachi fancies he can feel it watching him, and half longs for the day he feels its breath on the back of his neck where he can feel its gaze.

* * *

By the second winter, Itachi grows tired of staring at the chimney and waiting – his fingers are too numb to draw and the camera doesn't work in the cold - so he clambers up the icy tree that hangs over it like a gallows, braces himself on his forearms and leans down to look directly into the gently swirling water and laughs quietly in delighted horror – because he was right, it was  _warm_  – and asks a question, his voice breathy and half stolen by the cold.  
"What's your name?"

The only response was a sigh, and the waters rippled with a little more force, and Itachi feels himself turn a little giddy at the thought of something stirring in their depths before he asks again.  
"Please, what is your name?"  
The water sighs again, and Itachi fancies he can see two dark eyes watching him from beneath the surface so he leans closer still to hear the answer -  
"Shisui"  
\- but it strikes him like a physical blow, and the grief that suddenly seizes his heart makes him gasp and the sudden pain evoked by the single word loosens his grasp and he slips as his balance gives - but isn't aware of the fact he's falling because there are figures dancing across his eyelids, his dreams returning to haunt him in daylight and he's choking on a sob but doesn't understand  _can't remember_  why. But he doesn't fall, doesn't even make it out of the tree because arms are tight around him, holding him firm and his face is buried in unruly black curls that are so wet they feel like seaweed and just in front of his nose is a bulrush and he starts in fright but the mouth of the creature is at his ear and is whispering soothing nonsense that lulls him and he can make no sense of the words except his own name:  
"Itachi…Itachi….Itachi….Itachi….it really  _is_ you…"

The fear is washed away by a sudden sense of belonging and Itachi doesn't resist when the kelpie – when Shisui – sinks again into the water, pulling Itachi with him beneath the waves with laughter than sounds like home and whispered words of  
"Just can't stay away, can you, moron?"

He only returns to reality when he steps into the porch and his mother nearly has a heart attack when she sees him soaked to the bone.

When he returns the next day, he is startled to see Shisui sat on the stump he so often occupies and playing with his camera. He must have heard him coming, because as soon as he is in earshot of Itachi he turns and gives him a grin that has him unable to do anything but smile inanely in return and approach him with an ease he has never known before.  
"Forget something, dollface?"

* * *

The next summer, Shisui teaches Itachi how to swim -  
"Try not to swallow any, Itachi. I shit in here."

Itachi buys a Siamese fighting fish and calls it Shisui, because it is both fierce and curious and it reminds him of the faerie, but also because he needs to feel close to him while he's surrounded by the normal life he'd known before that had left him feeling so isolated.

Shisui thinks this is hilarious.

The first time Itachi sees Shisui naked, they're swimming and most of him is covered by water and so he can't discern any details, but by the time Itachi knows the loch like the back of his hand, Shisui announces that he's going to teach him to dive and instead of morphing into his equine form – which is much faster for getting around on land – he remains humanoid and turns to face Itachi while pointing at the overhang that covers the deepest part of the loch but is still easy enough to access from the ground, and the irony of the phrase "hung like a horse" and the reality of Shisui suddenly hits him like a tonne of bricks.

Itachi thinks this is hilarious.

It is midsummer before Itachi wonders briefly if Shisui is eating – he must be, he thinks, because everything has to eat – and there are plenty of stories of tourist walkers going missing in the hills and Itachi knows why now, but is Shisui responsible for it? He knows no one but he ventures over there because he's the only one who knows the paths that the deer use and there is never any sign of the kills, not the liver or heart of the victim washing up on the shore as it was said to – but then maybe Shisui is so ravenous that he doesn't care much for taste, and maybe he was planning to eat him next time he went up there, and all this was merely a guise like the human form he's so used to seeing and he will soon be dragged into the abyss and Shisui will drown him and then devour him like he was supposed to .

Kelpies weren't friendly by nature, this he knew. Every story and every reference he's ever read portrayed them as malevolent and tricky – but he knows Shisui in ways he barely understands and in the same way he finds himself unafraid, knowing somewhere deep inside him that he deserves it anyway.

Itachi often asks Shisui to model for him, though no one ever sees the sketches he makes of his human form, those are kept solely for Itachi in a secret box under a floorboard that he broke when moving his wardrobe and never fixed. Itachi has multiple drawings of Shisui in all his forms and in all their favourite haunts around the loch – even one of Shisui dozing in the sun with a blackbird perched on his head. Of this particular scene there is also a photograph which Itachi treasures – and he keeps all of these just in case Shisui leaves him, so that he'll have something of him left behind.

Shisui thinks this is ridiculous. ( _you coped just fine last time, kid)_

When the summer ends, Shisui always becomes a little darker, the autumn changing him like the leaves of the trees, and quite often there is blood on him somewhere when they meet, for he has to eat often in the face of the winter that will follow. Itachi understands this, and even brings him huge chunks of fresh meat from the butchers, and they barbeque it together on the shore while they have the chance to do so. Shisui knows he can rely on Itachi to be himself – that is both stubborn, moronic and brilliant all in the same breath, but there are parts of him now he must and will keep hidden beneath the waves, just in case Shisui scares him.

Itachi thinks this is ridiculous. ( _last time you didn't see what I became)_

Sometimes Itachi feels their days are heavy with the weight of something he doesn't remember, but Shisui will never forget so he curls further into Shisui's side and holds onto him tightly trying not to focus on how very vulnerable he feels only around him, relishing the strength of the grip Shisui returns before asking the question that keeps them perpetually at a stalemate:  
"Will you kill me?"  
"Will you bridle me?"  
and so they carry on as usual, and Shisui's mouth is enough to leave Itachi reeling, ice and heat all at once, possessing and harsh and so rich with the promise of death, his tongue slick with threat and hunger that Itachi moans and pulls Shisui closer, closer until he can drown in him and forget why.

* * *

The water of the loch is black the day Itachi is due to leave to study, and Shisui comes to Itachi who is sat on one of the large boulders that are strewn in one corner of the loch from a landslide with a large packet of raw meat for Shisui to freeze and keep for the winter at his side.

Shisui swims over to him and catches his feet with wet, icy hands and tugs at him none too gently.  
"S'matter with you?" Itachi looks at him and reaches out to cup Shisui's cheek, and Shisui rises up out of the water to bite Itachi on the collarbone for looking so miserable and not explaining why before twisting sideways and perching comfortably on the rock at his side.

Itachi reaches for him and tells Shisui how he has no desire to leave, to lead a life he cannot control – that all he wants to do is stay, remain by Shisui's side here forever and when Shisui slips off the rock into the water and offers his hand –

_(Drowning dark pain can'tbreathecan'tbreathe and it wasn't this way around last time)_

\- he doesn't hesitate to take it.

**Author's Note:**

> A fic based on the alternative spelling of Shisui's name - death water. As such, interpret the end as you will - which did Shisui take, a wife or a life?
> 
> (this may well receive a re-write, as this is a very early work, but for now here is the original)


End file.
